Guterres also acknowledged men’s role in making the world a safer place for women. “Our world needs more women leaders,” he said. “And our world needs more men standing up for gender equality.”

Executive director of U.N. Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, spoke after Guterres, and commented on the economic consequences of discrimination against women.

“[Women] are the under-the-radar and under-valued cogs in the bigger wheels of the formal economy,” she said. “Advancing women’s equality in total could bring a potential boost of 28 trillion U.S. dollars to global annual GDP by 2025.”